The Battery development, less than a mile from the centre of St James, has been without water for at least six months. For four of those months WASA provided an intermittent truck borne supply to the more than 70 households in the area.

I would appreciate the opportunity to use your medium to convey my thanks to the people and organisations that were pivotal on my path to my being recommended to receive the Hummingbird Silver Medal for loyal and dedicated service to T&T, during the 2017 National Awards.

Globally, road accidents account for 1.25 million deaths, per year (WHO, 2015). Automobile accidents also account for 20 million to 50 million injuries worldwide (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).

Ms Gillian Wall, co-founder of the NGO powerful ladies of T&T (PLOTT), as far as I am concerned, there is no need to explain what took place at the forum where you expressed exactly how you felt and I applaud you for being honest and sincere in calling a spade a spade.

The outcome of the Brexit election, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America and the recent results in the German election all seem to indicate a rise in right wing ideology.

The 2017/18 Budget speech by the Minister of Finance was called “Changing the Paradigm; Putting the Economy on a Sustainable Path”. At the end of its reading, the song “Help me make it through the night” kept resonating in my head.

The nation has certainly suffered a great loss with the passing of Clive Pantin. He has been a tremendous statesman, leader, politician, philanthropist, friend and most certainly a humanitarian leader.

The Minister of Finance must be commended for his 2018 budget presentation. Colm Imbert has successfully changed the government’s narrative of economic hardship to a new narrative of economic recovery ie “this is how we plan to manage our country’s circumstances.”